Some time ago I found a blog post about that in 10 years blockchain don't find a practical use in real life except cryptocurrencies that mainly is used for speculation and illegal transaction. I think it is a pretty pessimistic point of view and the author hurried to conclusions. Let's take a close look and find out how things really look like!

Why we need Bitcoin?

I agree, at the moment best implementation of blockchain is cryptocurrencies, mainly Bitcoin. Another big change is ICO. It changes the way how people raise investment and how people invest. At the moment it is full of scammers but I'm sure the things will change soon. Blockchain will remove banks as an institution from economic life. Right now we live a revolution of the old money system and it will redefine as we understand and as we percept a concept of money. I believe there is no a way back, and Next Big Think is right here.

On another side of the table are "optimists" that believe blockchain will be implemented in all domains of our life. Really? I don't think so.

I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. Before discussing where else blockchain can be implemented let's investigate the reasons why Bitcoin was created?

Bitcoin was created as an alternative to fiat money and banks. What is wrong with the current money system? In my opinion, there are couple critical issues: monopoly by state, intermediaries(banks), rigid control, high fee, low transaction speed, lack of trust, financial crisis, inflations.

Which of these problems affected you?

Online gambling is next

Based on this, I found that online gambling much the best criteria for blockchain implementation. In online gambling are some critical problems that can't be solved in our conditions.

The main problem is trust.

Why and how players can be sure some service offer fair proof games? Now this problem is trying to be solved by involving in the process intermediaries like gambling commissions, operate licensing companies, software testing licensing companies and other complicated and confusing rules. But for me as a player who wants to play with real money, how do I know that all involved parties are not in a conspiracy. Or how do I know there is not a software bug that decreases my winning chances and not discovered by software testing company? How can I check by myself the casino doesn't f..ck me? From another hand, how to be sure if I won I will get paid? At the moment is no way.

The second problem is the monopoly of state and big gambling companies. Monopoly does not allow to offer the best service for the best price. As result of monopoly, we have stagnation of entire gambling industry, old games with low odds and low winning chances. All lotteries and casino games are very old, and nothing new has happened in this domain for years. The most popular game in the industry is poker but I think humanity can invent something better and more interesting.

Third big problem is gambling addiction and minors involved in gambling. Now they try to solve them by placing on gambling services an icon with 18+, but this doesn't work as well as they expect (lol).

In Blockchain we trust!

How can blockchain help solve all those problems?

Monopoly can be destroyed by implementing decentralized gambling platforms. This will run a trend of competitions and development of new games with much higher odds, chances, and best user service.
Intermediary and "honor bright" should be replaced by crypto fair proof algorithms and smart contracts that offer a 100% transparency of bets.

Usually, people lie, and in the industry where millions of dollars pass from hand to hand daily blockchain can replace human factor. By implemented smart contracts will guarantee 100% of pay off to players. Using blockchain for monitoring of minors and gambling addiction players will make gambling industry more trusted, safe and will exclude social problems connected with gambling addiction.

Industries pioneers

Actually, there is a lot of work, but even now there are pioneers that understand the problem and try to come with solutions. We are one of them. We built Onlot(https://onlot.net), a new crypto gambling platform that has implemented new games, secured by the crypto fair proof algorithm. All deposits and withdraws are in cryptocurrency that let you play completely anonymously.

There you can play X99 with 99 odds winnings and chance 1%. Dice has a float chance and winning odds. Taurus is a lottery with 1 guaranteed winner every week. Imagine a lottery that will generate new multi-millionaires every week. Also, Onlot provides the full list of players payouts with transaction ids in blockchain log. We had to start small but have big plans for the future. We plan to implement smart contracts and develop new games. We want to change gambling industry making it more profitable for players, safer and solve problems that now exploit people.